Perspectival View

--Albertus Pictor, Taby Church (Sweden)
Game of chess, anyone?

I hope we shall... crush in its birth
the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations
which dare already to challenge our government
in a trial of strength, and bid defiance
to the laws of our country
--Thomas Jefferson

[She] has brought shame upon us all ...
Is there not law for it?
--The Scarlett letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne

When our leaders learn to cry
Oh lord I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in
--When the Saints Go Marching In,
Louis Armstrong
___________________

Yesterday we discussed Faisal Shahzad, Times Square bomber-manque who failed to inflict even the damage of a hangnail upon anyone, and who was sentenced to life imprisonment this week.

Contrast that with recent data that 100,000 Americans die annually due to doctor's incompetence, error or malpractice. The number seems small, since most of us know someone launched into the great beyond on a booster rocket provided by an inadequate (or inadequately concerned) doctor. The NYT just reported that sepsis alone kills 200,000 U.S. citizens annually due to general unawareness of the affliction, which can be treated by speedy hospital admission and administration of an antibiotic IV. Lisa almost became one of that number this summer.

But going with the 100,000 figure, please compare that to the threat level of terrorist groups. The significance of terror capabilities pales in comparison, and this ultimately affects their intent. Capability never matches intent (thankfully so), but not so for members of the American Medical association who cut us down in cooperation with the grim reaper and general collusion of an incompetent medical behemoth -- The System.

So, doctors kill us and rarely enter prison for manslaughter or negligent homicide, but a hapless wannabe gets life for his incompetence. Conclusion: Doctors, 100,000: Terrorists, zed. Doctors and lawyers are Big Kahunas over here; they make lots of dough over our corpses.

And as an old NCO once said to a young LT, "That's all there are to it." We fear men with rags on their heads, but embrace men with gold Rolexes killing us with abandon.

--Jim

From Oklahoma! to Oh! Calcutta!

I know you're in there
You're just out of sight
Oh, time passages
--Time Passages, Al Stewart

Your echo comes back out of tune
Now you can quite get used to it
Reverb is just a room
--Hope, Jack Johnson

Vanity of vanities; all is vanity
--Ecclesiastes
_________________

Ranger is waxing philosophic.

He read in Saturday's Boston Globe that Barbara D. Metras, 99, had died. Ms. Metras was the first woman in the Armed Services to retire after 20 years of service. She attained the rank of Chief Petty Officer in 1945. He also learned that the rock formation "The Old Man of the Mountain" had fallen off Cannon Mountain in the White Mountains years before his recent arrival there (in 2003, actually).

He will be attending his 40th college reunion next month, and will be part of a group which will address ROTC cadets from the class of 2008/09. This set him to thinking how it would have been for him had the commensurate occasion occurred upon his graduation in 1968. Those men would have been class of 1928! Practically geezers. How might their experiences have comported with those of the psychedelic love children?

Then he thought about how hip people in his generation still imagine themselves to be: "We introduced yoga, transcendental meditation, Esalen." They listened to The Beatles, and Rolling Stones and The Doors and "Hair" and "Oh! Calcutta" . . . But what if -- just what if -- the things they ushered in were not societal positives. What if the Class of 1928 held better values and mores?

After all, before them was Moon River and Frank Sinatra and "Oklahoma!" and "The Music Man". After them was Johnny Rotten, Biggie Smalls "All That Jazz" and "Rent" (in no particular order.)

Ranger has outlived a geologic formation. He muses he will appear positively neolithic to these young cadets. Perhaps he will become, after many eons of compaction, fuel for some future H2.

A sobering thought.